It’s often been said that an early casualty of any political movement, including any equal rights movement, is a sense of humor. Here are some possible reasons why laughter can make zealots so nervous:
1. It’s understandable. When a group of people has been marginalized and oppressed, that group can get very tired of being used as a punchline.
2. Comedy can depend on nuance, contradiction and anarchy. Political movements, even the anarchists, can’t afford any of these things.
3. People attracted to any doctrinaire political movement, on the right or the left, often didn’t have much of a sense of humor to begin with.
4. Political movements, even the ones I agree with, are about blustering certainty. Comedy is about questioning that certainty.
5. Power means controlling acceptable language, whether it’s the use of the words American, trans, Ms., husband, victim, Christian, patriot or bigot. Powerful people, on any side of an equation, are almost never funny. By which I mean, deliberately funny.
6. Only Kings and Queens can afford to have court jesters, because Kings and Queens never have to run for re-election.
7. Politicians often like to “open with a joke”, to set the crowd at ease. These carefully scripted jokes may accomplish that goal, but they’re never actually funny.
8. Politicians and comedians, even the most outrageous comedians, want to be admired and liked (the more extreme comics want to be worshipped for being extreme.) Both groups try to accomplish this goal by pretending to tell the truth. Here’s the difference: politicians are terrified of being laughed at, while comedians crave exactly that response, which somehow seems healthier.
